How to Stop Grouping of Taskbar Buttons in Windows 8

Reminding of old days, in Windows XP we had the expanded taskbar icons for currently running programs. Since Windows 7, these taskbar buttons are grouped by default to the program icon in order to increase free space on taskbar. But, some of users may find it uninteresting and they may like to restore the ungrouped program buttons.

Let’s see the differences between past and present conditions:

From the above image, I guess you’ve figured out what I’m trying to do. The reason behind broking the combination and split them to separate tab is to enhance the efficiency. In the past condition, you can read what’s going on the tab since it is mentioned there but in the present scenario, you have to move the cursor to get the same thing.

Now, in this article, we’ll provide you with three ways to configure these settings and increase the productivity of your Windows 8.

Method 1: Manually Using Taskbar Properties

1.Right click on taskbar and select Properties.

2. In the Taskbar Properties window, for the Taskbar buttons section, click the drop down menu and select Never combine.

Click Apply then OK. Reboot the machine to get results. So this was the basic way, now lets see some advance ways:

Method 2: Using Registry Editor

3. In the right pane of this location, create a new DWORD using Right click -> New -> DWORD Value. Name it as TaskbarGlomLevel. Double click to modify it:

4. Put the Value data to 1 to have not combined tabs until taskbar is full, otherwise put 2 to have no grouping at all. Click OK. Restart the computer to see effects. If you want to group tabs again in the future, simply put 0 as Value data or delete the DWORD created in step 3.

Method 3: Using Command Prompt / Batch File

To simply the work, you can use the following .bat (command processing) file. Extract the RAR file and simply right click on the file after download and select Run as administrator:

About the Author

Being an Electrical Engineer by profession, Kapil is a Microsoft Community Star. He is passionate Windows blogger who loves to write about Windows tricks, tips and customization. He loves to help people in troubleshooting their Windows related issues. More from this author »